Wow... How come the vigneting shape look like a heart shape? Very romantic picture!

I hope I can join you guys in shooting some astro related pictures to complete my collection. I have some crazy ideas in my mind.

But few stupid questions here;

(1) Where do you guys shoot around KL/PJ? You go somewhere up hill?

(2) Are you willing to take a picture with exposure of 4~5 hours and most probably will be biten by flies? I hope can shoot together, because 4~5 hours for star trails is a long time... at least can talk...

I think I am the wrong person you look for Did you see my sig? There is a earning money programme, I am now using it to buy my Meade So far so good, if you join me and use as well as invest in this programme, I can buy my Meade quicker. I think March05, Wkkay and you are richer than me

I saw the equatorial tripod-like stuff... very bulky and does not look anything cheaper than RM2k to my eyes.

One question, if our camera can manage to do ISO6400 or even higher with acceptable noise performance, then we need no those tracker, right? If that so, maybe dSLR in few more years already can do that.... And the tracker will be a thing of the past?

(1) I myself is in Kluang and the air polution is not as bad as in KL. We are taking the photos of Venus, Jupiter and Moon that doesn't take such a long time as they are bright enough.

(2) I haven't tried to shoot star trails because my camera can only do 15secs exposure

(1)dont think kl/pj will allows any astrophoto. maybe a day in a month for clear sky.

(2)normally 2-3hrs can get nice star trails olredi. and pray for no interruption.
must use fresh battery unless u found out ur slr died after 1 hour


can get the equatorial thing at around 1k. we need those tracker to
get nice still star/cluster/galaxies pics. u will only get a startrail without
it because the earth is moving and we need to move the camera and pointing
at the target even the earth is moving. those equatorial will help moving
ur camera as the earth moves.

Some astro photos need even one hour to expose as they are too faint. If you able to shoot using iso6400, I think most of the ppl will use it to discover more. It needs one hour though so I think the tracker is still needed.

Most of the astrophotographer will use cold-ccd camera to take astrophotography therefore normal DSLR will get damn high noise if it is used to take long exposure photos and at high iso rate.

yea2 maybe using ISO100 will give good result in avoiding noise.
high ISO will collect all the interference in atmosphere.
tat y Hubble space telescope is the best.

Deepyu, buy the hubble telescope for us to take photos and let the NASA build another one for them.

haha..HST is dreamt in 1940s..designed and built in 1970-80..and only
start its operation in 1990!! HST is teamwork of NASA&ESA..
here for more http://www.stsci.edu/hst/
even bill gates cant afford it lar i think...

Wait a few more years and u can get it for free. NASA's abandoning it. U'll have to come up with a maintenance plan.......ha ha.

No matter how sensitive the sensor is, astrophotography is always pushing technology to the limits. Because we want to capture objects that are extremely dim, long exposures and large apertures are going to be a necessary evil.
A telescope will always out perform a telephoto lens due to its resolving ability, and not its magnification. The telescope is designed to optimise starlight and non visible light by using special coatings. A telescope must also have practically no chromatic aberration; you would be hard pressed to find a telephoto lens meeting this specification even if you reach the several hundred thousand ringgit level. Normal camera lenses are good for terrestrial objects because this is natural to our eyes but may be quite poor at stellar objects.

So an accurate mount is still a must-have for anyone getting into Astrophotography - especially for planetary images and deep sky stuff. It has become so that anyone with a cheap webcam and a good GOTO telescope can do better Astrophotography than with a super camera without a GOTO telescope. Of course, if you have a super camera and a GOTO telescope, the sky's the limit.

the Canon that TheVoIP & deepyu mentioned earlier is one commercial attempt to market a camera with a CMOS which is more sensitive to certain wavelengths deemed abundant out there. Use the same arrangement for your normal on-earth shots, and things will look pretty unbalanced. This development has made the astronomers quite excited, since in the past they had to hunt around for rare stocks of certain Kodak CCDs to do so called professional work. Now the Nikon D70s, and the new Canons are the rage!

CCD/CMOS noise is no longer a such big factor in astrophotography since dark frame processing can deal with it.

This post has been edited by March05: Sep 15 2005, 12:53 AM

Heh man... I think 15 seconds is a great limitation. Minimum must able to use bulb, right? If you are serious, really need to upgrade camera le... at least got excusses to upgrade, right? I believe there are few good used camera around.

Ok... so KL/PJ will be a real problem... Hope you guys can recommend... Since I am new still to digital, I still yet to know all its extreme technical limitation like battery.. I still remember I can do around 5~6 hours with my EOS A2 with new 2CR5. If worst come to worst, I might even consider DIY with powerful external acid-lead battery pack. I believe as long as the voltage is matched, should be ok.

I always believe there are few type of photography are always pushing the equipments to its limit; be it sports (outdoor and indoor) as well as astrophotography. Every ISO as well as size aperture do count...

However it is a surprise to hear that a fine tele might not perform as good as telescope. You have your point that telescope is optimise for far distance. But most probablt I will still start with normal tele, and maybe some longer tele primes. Reasons are pretty simple; one lens multi-purpose ma...

Just one little question to my curiosity; Did you ever seen anyone shooting astrophotograph with a laptop connecting to the devices (be it normal dSLR or etc)?

abandoning it? means crashing it deep to atlantic??
even if its up there we'll need few hundred millions to rental NASA's
spacecraft..

having slr is a must for astrophoto..or atleast ccdcam..
me also dont have any dslr..shot some startrail using my film slr few yrs before..
if seriously want to do astrophoto have to go somewhere like Mr.LKM's place..
clear sky there.. Or climb any mountain..
But a fine tele can perform nice astrophoto for beginner..but for more deep sky
photo u'll need the telescope..

shooting with laptop?? never seen any with my eyes but
its true. telescope with computer guided system like meade's telescope is normal
today. so u can control everything from ur laptop.
maybe someday we can shot astrophoto together..

Hope i don't sound like i'm preaching. just that when ppl want to talk about my favorite subjects, i lose control....... Be free to tear me to pieces anytime.


Don't be modest, your reputation precedes you. Photography is about exploring new territories, noone knows it all; we are always beginners. ha, ha.

Full agreement here.


The modern consumer camera is a pretty amazing all round device and would out perform most professional stuff available years ago. But technology moves on, and we have reached new frontiers again.

Yes, it is standard to plug in CCD/CMOS devices to computers (notebooks are popular due to their mobility) in digital astrophotography to do realtime processing and storage. We don't actually take astrophotos by pressing the shutter button anymore.......the thousands of frames acquired in a single session would swarm even a 1 GB flash storage device.

BTW, long exposures are a parameter in film based Astrophotography, not so much in Digital Astrophotography. The best CCD/CMOS devices will all suffer from increasing noise levels in a short while, and become unusable. That is one reason why so many amateur astrophotographers still keep their manual 35mm SLRs. It is difficult photography, but you have no battery problems, and you don't need to run the lightmeter, no aperture and shutter control except bulb mode.

Now i need to go and sulk for a month (because missed the Moon-Venus -Jupiter thing last week). See you during the Mars close encounter in October.

Just in case, plenty of Star Parties going on this weekend, due to the Full Moon/ Lantern Festival. Make sure you go out and join/gatecrash one! deepyu, going to climb which mountain?

Where does Mr. LKM stay? And how tired will it be to climb the mountain....? Imagine bringing some heavy camera gears, heavy tripod, laptop, cookies and other food... Dun laught laught le.. You need food and water for long hours shot, right?

I am still pretty new to digital in a sense that compare to what I know about film and my old camera, where almost every technical limitation was predictable. Ya... lots of films (money) were spent of testing and knowing the limits.

Now I yet to know even how bad my dSLR will be doing at 1 minute, 3 minute or 5 minutes exposure. And also battery limitation like how many shots can be taken for each 1~5 minute exposure... Will the camera get hot and spoilt when I approve its limit? Lots of question in my mind left unanswered.

I usually need to know the limit in order to do some planing for the shot.

By the way, I used to do some star trail before... but that was with film... and somehow under-exposed even for 5 hours shot! I found film light response is really low for low light. It is one of the thing that I was shocked when I shot a test night shots and found out digital is far more sensitive (consistence in a way) and need much little time for exposure.

It is what I am thinking. In order to capture thousand of frames consistency in dSLR, let's say Canon system. It is not cheap;

(1) One might need to get 8GB microdrive
(2) Those expensive remote control that has interval control

And some more cannot even know the result while being shot. At least laptop allow real-time viewing with some software help.

And most important, I already have the laptop and need no to spend extra. Just want to save money ma...

I heard of that... It is why I am thinking of some solution to overcome this irritating long exposure issues. I hope I can make use of my technical background to get acceptable results and will post the solution on my coming web.

If some technical limitation can be overcome, there will be new possiblity in astrophotography... Solve the technical issue, come the new pictures!

Do update us with the events for shooting.

By the way, one of the reason why I ask about laptop shooting is that the basic remote control is sold for RM120, not cheap....

Mr.LKM is at Kluang..so I think nice sky overthere..
yeap...u will need everything for a night or two camping.

5hours and still underexposed?? i wonder wat setting and equipment u used.
I tried for about 2 hours..with ISO100 slide film and it turn up to be ok..not underexposed. maybe little bit overexposed..

Sorry guys, let you all disappointed again......I forgot to process the photos...too busy with my study, have to sit for PMR, UEC next month... and I can't take the photo of the meet of Jupiter-Venus-Mars and Moon except I have super wide lens

My place is not very clear, so many clouds that block the sight... My place there got a mountain but it is just 5xx metres high...

Hey guys, we move to north pole lah I am still counting the cost of the Meade ETX-105AT, the price has passed through RM6600...... I am considering buying one LPI ( Lunar Planetary Imager ) to take the astro photos instead of my noisy Konica Minolta Z3. I am so irritated with my place as the sky is always full of clouds.

how about this place...
climb up like 15 min... i guess

From some the pictures I saw over at PM, I think maybe best to camp overnight there rather than try to climb up in the evening....

But is it far enough from all the light pollution in Klang Valley?

yelorr wasabi..actually where arr the exact location u shot tat pic..
really good view..and is it away from lights intereference/hazy sky??
me also want to try lar..15min so i guess its not too hard to climb..